- Joined
- Nov 26, 2019
- Favourite title
- Shenmue
I finished Horizon Zero Dawn/Frozen Wilds today, well sort of. It was a bit tedious but I played the entire main story until 2 missions before the end and couldn't sit through anymore of the gameplay so I ended up going to YouTube to watch the last 30 minutes or so of the game. I tried playing through Frozen Wilds as well and halfway through the first mission I ended up doing the same. My feelings are conflicted on Horizon and while it's still better than most of the video games I've played in the last 20 years, it just didn't do it for me. I was very open to loving this game but only came out liking it. It does most things well enough but nothing really great imo.
LIKES:
Aloy. While she wasn't as amazing as presented in the build up, she was a likeable character and I admire her passion and curiosity, it's the main thing that kept me picking up the controller every time I'd consider putting it down for good. 8/10
INDIFFERENCES:
The landscape. It's pretty and diverse and if you ever been in real life it's clearly Utah inspired(ontop of the UT references in the game)but it just didn't do it for me for some reason, I have no desire to go back and explore it after finishing the game. 7.5/10
Rost. He was interesting the first few minutes but the connection never seems to come to fruition between him and Aloy. 6/10
Sylens. The only other interesting character in the game next to Aloy, until you find out his motives and then it's kindve flat. 6.5/10
The story. While it had some really enjoyable moments and great dialogue along with thoughtful creativity, more often than not it was uninteresting and poorly executed and I cant help but feel it could've been written a lot better. Often times just as I was about to put the controller down for good it would give me a bread crumb of "oh wow! What's next??" it overall never stayed interesting most of the time and even in its conclusion it felt somewhat flat. 6.5/10
DISLIKES:
THE GAMEPLAY!! Worst part of the game and nearly ruined it if it weren't for Aloys character and the bread crumbs of story development. The tedious tasks of exploring the landscape overrun by machines with a horrible combat system that feels outdated and the physics are very much off. Combat doesn't fit the game style. 5/10
The robots. I didn't warm up to the robots at all, maybe cause it was 7 hours before I knew why they existed and why we were killing them? I never had a sense of wanting to fight them from a story line perspective, and the combat system made the play unbearable that I'd avoid them at all costs. It wasn't too hard or too easy, just not fun to engage combat. 5.5/10
The human bad guys. Lame lame lame. I expected to enjoy combat with the humans more and it was even less satisfying than the robots. 3/10
All of the other side characters outside of Sylens and Rost. Boring and dislikable. 4.5/10
Inconclusion, I wanted to love Horizon Zero Dawn and I thought that I would at least enjoy it in a 'video game kind of way' which means it doesn't have to strike me on a spiritual level or something super relatable/deep though I was expecting and hoping for that, I would've been ok with just something enjoyable, well written and basic fun but I couldn't wait to put the controller down on this one. Again, I wouldn't say it was bad, but there was enough bad things to take it from being great to just 'good enough..barely above 'above average'. I'd give Horizon Zero Dawn 7/10 overall leaning towards a 6.5 more so. In retrospect, I would have preferred to watch a 3 hour cutscene movie on YouTube of this game. As for the sequel I probably will watch it on YouTube, at best. This disappointment has nothing to do with other people's hype as I tend to not pay attention to others opinions unless I know their mind/interests/beliefs nor was it from coming off of the amazing Ghost of Tsushima. My feelings are based on my experience alone with Horizon.
Speaking of Ghost of Tsushima..time to get back to completing the side stuff :)
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